Welcome to Hel
by Greentree's Apprentice
Summary: Infinity War AU cause we need more Loki! -SPOILERS- This follows the story of IW part one without changing anything which happened on screen but follows the story of background characters that don't really exist in the movie over the course of the movie. Characters that will appear include Hela and others from the Comics and Thor movies.
1. Loki's Dead!

Loki took one more glance at his brother before aproching Thanos.

"...Prince of Asgard, Odinson..." He listed off his titles, as if adressing himself at his own funeral and listing his titles, to give himself strength in what he was about to do.

In a last ditch attempt to prove himself to Thor and to himself that he can change, that he can be more than just the God of Mischief, he drew his dagger and thrust it at the neck of the purple titan.

But it was all a vain attempt.

The year Loki had spent being broken, tortured, remolded and mind controled by the mad titan had taught Thanos how Loki thinks, at this point Thanos could predict what Loki would do before he did it. Lies of the trickster could no longer delude Thanos. Thanos easily brushed aside Loki's attempt at assasination, the dagger fell to the side leaving Loki open to a counter attack. Thanos had known where Loki's heart truely lay since he first met the God of mischief. The lies Loki told himself to justify his deeds, killing the frost giants, to justify everything he had done to stop Thor from inheriting the throne could fool himself but not Thanos. Knowing that Loki loved Thor and would do anything for his brother as any sibling would, Thanos grabbed onto Loki's neck and started squeezing.

As Thanos gripped his neck, breaking Loki's spine with his bare strength, Loki struggled to breath his last breath. He gripped Thanos's giant purple hand, kicked his legs. But ultimatly he knew there was no escape this time. His vision going black, Loki could only regret not changing his ways sooner and falling behind his brother.

* * *

With death brought relief. No more pain, no more torture. He was free.

But there was something wrong. Death was just too bright. It wasn't possible that he would be admitted to valhalla, he was not honourable enough, not brave enough... not Asgardian enough.

Loki slowly forced open his eyes, something white was in front of his face. He blinked a few times to get rid of the bluriness to find that he was face-to-face with a skull. He pushed himself backwards in shock, scampering to his feet only to hear a very farmiliar voice call out to him.

"That was quicker than I expected, brother. I wasn't expecting you for another few thousand years! It's been what, 2 days?" As Loki raised his head, he realised the skull was just one of many skulls adorning a throne, and sprawled upon that throne, dressed in a black catsuit adorned with green was his sister, Hela. She smirked down at him, raised her arms and gestered around her, "Welcome to Hel, like what I've done with the place?"


	2. Welcome to Hel

"Welcome to Hel, like what I've done with the place?" Hela rose from her throne of skulls, her eyes glistening with what Loki percived as gloating. Her long horns on her helmet made her a ferce looking woman that stood imposing above Loki. As she steped down, from the skulls, Loki could not help but take a step back. He subconciously reached for his daggers, but quickly stopped himself before they materialised.

She smashed Thor's Hammer.

She smashed Thor's hammer before she started to regain her power from Asgard.

He was no match for her.

Hela's head tilted to the side slightly as she rephrased her question, "Well?" Loki just looked back at her blankly not sure how to respond, something which did not happen often for him. Hela sighed silently at the petrified Loki. "You are dead, Brother. Your soul now belongs to me."

"Yes, I am dead. As are you. How was Ragnarok?" Loki retorted, his natural sibling rivaly instincts taking over. Her arogance reminded him very much of Thor, it was not hard to see that they shared the same father. "I unfortunatly had other matters to attend to and could not attend." A smile brushed across his face as he could see the corners of her mouth fall.

"Is that really how you address your Queen?" Hela demanded.

"The people rejected you, Thor sits on the throne. Even I did a better job that you at ruling asgard!" Her words grated on Loki's sore spot memories of Thanos rose unridden to his mind causing him to lash out. "You are only sucessfull in ruling over the dead!"

Expecting Hela to stab him, Loki was suprised to hear her laugh. The Laugh was not malicious or sarcastic, but it still put Loki on edge. "You are right. I rule over the dead." Hela pointedly looked Loki straight in the eye as she stopped laughing. "And you are dead."

As realising came over Loki, he grimaced.

"Kneel." Hela smirked. "Before your Queeen."

Loki tried to resist, he struggled internally against his determination to stand proud, knowing that it would do no good to act like a prince. It was not like he was unused to being knocked down a few pegs and shown how unformidable he actually is. It had happened a lot recently, he had met too many people his schemes did not work on recently. Though he figured it was worth seeing if he could manipulate the situation with Hela like he did with the Grandmaster on Skaar. After hesitating for a second he lowered his head respectfully in submission and slowly lowered his body to the ground untll one knee touched the ground and he was kneeling before Hela.

This seemed to please the Godess of Death. "I guess you are more inteligent than you look."

Loki didn't dare look up from the ground. He was still trying to adjust his pokerface to stop his fear from showing though. The last time he kneeled...

* * *

 _His legs trembled as he kneeled on the rough ground, something he was kneeling on was stabbing into his knee, or maybe it was just the impact of knee hitting the ground when he kneeled making the fracture worse. The feeling in his left arm was gone, it hung limply at his side, from time to time he kept wondering if it was still attached._

 _"Good Boy." Loki shived as Thanos's voice leered at him taunting how helpless he was before him. It made him want to turn invisible and hide, but last time he did that... Loki shivered, he did not want to repeat that._

 _Thanos leaned in close and whispered in Loki's ear. "You want to rule, to see others kneel before you as you kneel before me. If you entertain my children then you will get the chance to prove yourself usefull to me. If you do not... well I am sure someone else can explain what will happen then." Thanos straightened and strode away, leaving Loki alone with those Thanos called his children._

 _Watching Thanos become smaller did not bring relief to Loki, he was too farmiliar with how 'playtime' with Thanos' children went. As they stepped forwards he could only reminisce to when he was hanging off the bifrost. Why could he have not died then?_


	3. More Green?

"Rise"

After leaving the young prince on his knee for a minute, Hela got bored. When Loki rose, his face showed none of the turmoil he had burried deep in his heart. Hela opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could footsteps were heard echoing and a figure with a hood over their head entered through a door near the throne.

This distraction gave Loki a chance to look around at where he was for the first time. As his head turned towards the approaching figure he saw that he was in a large high celling stone room. The stone of the walls were old, seemingly slightly decayed, the throne was the only spooky bone structure in the room, the rest was like a normal throne room, lined with pillars holding flaming torches. Loki did not dare look directly behind him so he could not see how long the room was.

He waited as the figure whispered something to Hela, and was suprised to find that he could not evesdrop on the conversation. He watched as Hela whispered something back and sent him off.

"Could do with a little more green." Loki rubbed his chin as he made exagerated his movements for looking at the room arouns him.

Hela again paused as she was about to say something, then suddenly laughed. "Yes, you are right, it could." She walked past Loki and guestured for him to follow. He turned and followed as her heels like a puppy. Now that he saw the rest of the room he saw that the throne room streched on forever, the light from the torches was not enough to cast it into light so the other side of the room was shrouded in darkness. The Godess of Death lead Loki down through the room untill he could no longer see the throne.

"Where are we going?" Loki brought up the courage to ask.

As Hela's back was to the God of Mischief, he did not see her smile. "You are Prince of Asgard, I thought you would want to see your people." She opened a door Loki did not see previously behind one of the many pillars linning the side of the room, guestering for him to go through first. He glanced up at her before heading through.

The room at the other side of the door was dark, very dark. There were no torches on the walls. Loki could barely see that the floor in front of him was not solid stone but a meter into the room became a grate. Other than the large grate in the floor, Loki could not see any other features in the room. Hela rougthly pushed him to the edge of the grate in the floor, he off balanced and fell to his knees at the edge. Finding himself looking down into the darkness, he saw moving shapes, slightly personlike.

Behind him Hela whispered "The doors to Valhalla have not yet opened, yet there seem to be half of Asgard who will enter." Loki's eyes widened as he stared down at the Asgardians down below them. "You however will not join them."

While trying to make out the individual Asgardians Loki asked "Why are they here?"

Keeping her voice low, Hela replied "I have my reasons for keeping them here, for a while. You will help me get what I want and in return I shall open the door for them who died in battle." She grabbed the back of Loki's cape and physically dragged him along the floor, out the dark room. "You will be happy to know that our brother, is not one among them."

Loki quickly jumped up off the ground, brushing himself off. "What makes you think I was looking for Thor?" Hela didn't reply. She merly stared at Loki, raising her eyebrows until he blushed and changed his question. "What do you want from me?"

"An army." Hela then turned and walked away, leaving Loki alone in the darkness to ponder all that he had learned.

The knowlage that Thor was still alive was a relief. If Thor had died, Loki would had sacrificed himself for nothing. With Thor alive there was still a chance to stop Thanos, all that needed to happen was for his brother to meet up with his alies on earth and stop Thanos from aquiring all the infinity stones. Loki had to admit that the Avengers and the wizard on earth were formidable, enough to at the very least give Thanos a headache. But Loki did not think that they would be enough to stop the mad titan. He had seen up close how much more formidible Thanos was. He was relentless and brought fear to entire planets at a time. Loki feared the self proclaimed defendors of earth would not be nearly a match for the titan himself.

Thor had lost his hammer.

Even though Loki had seen how terrifing Thor was weilding the full power of the Odinforce without his hammer, Thor still seemed less without it. Less arogant maybe, or maybe just less confident. And as King of Asgard, he had both blown up Asgard and watched half of the people of Asgard die. Even Loki could guess how thor could loose his confidence in himself. While during Loki's reign Asgard was fluorishing, it was only the other realms that started to suffer. When he was guised as Odin he blamed alienating Heimdal, removing the eyes over the rest of the nine realms, but Heimdal would have realised that he was acctually Loki if he had been alowed to stay as gatekeeper.

Loki sighed and decided to explored this realm of the dead.


	4. Roots of Yggdrasil

_A/N: I am taking most my information from the comic version of the characters Hela and Loki (Earth-616) but altering it slightly as the cinematic universe (Earth-199999) don't line up exactly with the comic universe. What isn't explicitly stated in the Thor or Avengers Movies I am taking liberties with to make this flow better._

 _Thanks for your support!_

* * *

It was some time untill Loki figured his way around Hel. It was very diserted as far as he could tell. Other than Hela, he had only come across the hooded figure but had still not seen their face, there didn't seem to be anyone else around. Loki had not been able to find the room with the Asgardians again after Hela lead him there. By going through many differetn dorrs and finding himself in different places while repeatedly going through the same door, Loki realised that this place was close to Hela's mindscape and she had direct authority over everything that happened here, Loki knew that he would have no power to resit Hela's every whim. If she desired him to suffer for eternity, Loki summised that she could make him wish he was still being tortured by Thanos.

Having no way to do anything, Loki could only practice his magic to find a way out of Hel. When returning to his body after a failed atempt to send his astral projection out of the realm, he opened his eyes to find Hela standing in front of him. Shocked he jumped up from the cross-legged position he had on the floor. "This is the place Odin had kept you in for over a thousand years?"

"If it were that easy to get out of here using magic, you don't think Odin would have been able to keep me here that long. You still have much to learn, your magic is just tricks, grasing the surface of what is possible." Hela summoned a staff and stood it on the ground, looking imposing. "What are you the god of again?"

A grin spread across his face. "I am the god of mischief." He guestured at the staff. Hela looked to the hand that help the staff, finding that instead of holding a staff, a snake was curling it's way around her arm. Hela seemed unphased by the sudden apearence of the snake, she ignored it and turned back to Loki. Hela's reaction to the snake was not within his expectations, he was unable to stop a flash of supprise from crossing his face. "Perhaps you are not as similar to Thor as I originally thought..." he mused.

"I should just send you to enternal torment, you act just like that quim father was always drooling over. He was always more impressed with her common tricks than my superiour skill." Hela's gazed drifted from Loki as she sounded bored.

Loki was taken back as she said those words. _Was she talking about Frigga?_ He glanced up at Hela's face, hiding the look of shock on his face. "W-who... was Odin always drooling over?" his mouth was dry as he said that, he had to try to mix saliva around before getting the rest of his question out.

Hela's answer was laced with venom "Frigga. She convinced father to grant independance to the nine realms. In my attempt to make Odin aware that she was manipulating him, he had me cast out, imprisoned here."

Despite seeing Hela was in a bad move, Loki had to know more, he couldn't have anyone bad-mouthing Frigga. "You weren't the child of Frigga?"

"Pah!" Hela spat. "Odin took liberties with the other realms, my mother was from Jotunheim." She stood proud as she let that bomb drop.

Loki's face went blank, his mind was in so much turmoil he couldn't process what he had just heard. He just stared at Hela, unsure of how to react, not aware that the hooded figure had appeared, had a discussion with Hela and left again. He didn't respond to anything around him until Hela had lifted him up from the ground so his head was at her level and their eyes were level.

"A pity, such a small mind as yourself is not capable of imagining anyone other than a pureborn asgardian as heir to the throne." She teased before dropping him.

Loki just stared at her, his face flashed a mix of emotions, terror, confusion, realisation, loss.

"Y-y-you a-are f-f-fros-frostgiant?!" He finally managed to squeal in a high pitched voice.

"Half." Hela corrected unphased. "I see Odin has kept Asgard as close minded as ever." she sighed as if disapointed in the lack of progress asgard had made.

"I-" Loki wasn't sure if he wanted to tell her his origins or not. He felt like this could be a point where he could finnally have something in common with a family member. But if Odin had originally planned to have a half-frost giant sitting on the throne of asgard, what changed after Hela was banished? But he was dead, there was nothing more to lose, the most he could gain would be to gain close to a sibling. He swallowed before continuing. "I'm a frost giant. Laufeyson."

Hela's eyes widened in supprise. "Oh, now that is interesting."


	5. Welcome to Hell

_A/N: I am still trying to figure out where I want to go with this story, but I have more of an idea than when I started so I have updated the discription. I might change the description again if I change where I am going but for now it's staying vague._

 _Thankyou all for your continued support and I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it!_

* * *

Despite the over looming threat Loki felt at all times since he found himself in Hel, he felt as if he was hitting it off with Hela. Much better than he had under Odin's rule. He also felt like his sibling bond with her could almost match his bond with Thor. He had a lot more in common with Hela and she seemed to understand him more than Thor used to when they were younger. Still, he missed his brother.

Comtemplating Thor's future, Loki realised that Thor would undoubtedly go to Valhalla unless Loki persuaded Hela to trap him here when he died. But Loki did not want to condem Thor to that fate with him. There had to be another way. Loki didn't think that he could do anything to persuade Hela to let him trancend to Valhalla with the other Asgardians. But if he could strike a deal, one with bait that Hela could not refuse perhaps he could get her to bring him back to life...

But first he needed to get the dead Asgardians to Valhalla, as Prince of Asgard, even a dead one, it was his responsibility to shepard them. If only the Goddess of Death too her title a little more seriously. Loki sighed and open his eyes, he found himself staring at the ceiling, the light from the tourch flames creating devilish shadows. At this point he wasn't sure how long it had been since Thanos had crushed his neck. Hela seemed to be playing with him, using her power to manipulate the area around him. But she was still underestmating him. He was the god of lies and mischief. He could tell what was real in this realm and what was not.

It still took a while for Loki to get his bearings. He knew that Hela could still oerpower him if she deemed him too much of a threat but with knowlage of a secret passage, a way out Loki wasn't too worried. He found the area he deemed with the weakest point, probing it with his magic, making a gap, just big enough to slip through. It anyone was to see what he was doing, it would look like he was pulling bricks from one of the columns that lined the infinite throne room, he just hoped that Hela was too preoccupied to jump out on him now. He squeezed into the pillar.

Instead of trapping himself a brick pillar, Loki found himself in a world of fire. This place, however wasn't somewhere he had been before. It was dark, similar to Hel, but not Hel. Loki felt like although he had escaped, he had only broken through the boundary Odin had set up and not acctually left the realm of the dead. After sending out some astral projection clones to scout, he realised where he was. Hell.

Not acctuall Hell that some of the mortals on earth would fear. But a segment controled by one of the the Lords of the Underworld, the demon Mephisto. Loki didn't have too much of a rappor with the demon but Loki figured he could try to make a deal with him to secure Hela an army at the very least.

Loki found Mephisto in a corner of Hell, dressed to look like a bar. From this vantage point, Loki could hear the screams of those that were once mortal all around him. He slowly walked up, as if he had been invited there and sat on a stool beside Mephisto. Mephisto was stirring a drink on the bar slowly, smiling to himself over something Loki didn't think he wanted to know. He was smartly dressed in a red suit that matched the red of his demon skin, his black hair stood up on end, but without loking as messy as if he had been electrocuted. The demon ignored Loki as he sat down beside him and continued to smile at his drink.

"What you drinking?" Loki struck up the conversation with a friendly smile.

Without looking at Loki, Mephisto replied "She had a lovely name, Daisy, I think it was."

Loki smiled outwardly, ignoring the revulsion his brain had when hearing the unfortunate fate Daisy when through. "I hear that you are planning on invading Hel." Loki looked away from the drink Mephisto held and smiled secretivly.

This caused Mephisto to look up for the first time and stare at Loki for a second before releasing a small laugh. Loki had to hide a shiver as this laugh gave him goosebumps. "It would seem that the god of mischief is skipping the silvertounge altogether."

"I am not here to lie to you, I want to help." Loki tinted his voice with a slight pout.

"You don't help others, you only do things for yourself. I don't know what you are proposing but-"

Loki cut Mephisto off before he could be rejected. "You give me the Disir, I lead them into Hel." Loki swayed his hand in the air slowly. "You make a deal with Hel, giving full power over the Disir to her to use. I convince her to send them against Thanos."

Mephisto snorted. "I don't see what I would get out of this deal, I give up my army to fight a being that doesn't even concern me. Do beter silvertounge."

"If Thanos succeeds he will wipe out half the universe. You will have much less mortals to torment in your realm." Loki teased. "With the infinity stones, he could even wipe you out of existance." With the hand he had raised, he snapped his fingers causing a scrol to appear in his hand. The scroll unrolled revealing spindly writing that sparkled with magic, in big writing at the top was writted the word 'Deal'. Loki passed the scroll to Mephisto. "I think you will like what I have written here."

Mephisto took the scroll and read through it with a serious face. At some point in the contract, his face lit up. Loki swallowed the horror from his expression and he called a quill into existance and passed it to Mephisto for him to sign the bottom. The demon took the feather, touching it to his tounge then bringing it to the paper. His name apeared in blood red beside Loki's own. Mephisto looked up at Loki. "You better keep your part of this contract." a nasty smile spread across his face as he passed the scroll back.

Loki forced a smile back on his face as he made the scroll vanish. "You can trust that I will keep my word." with that he turned and headed out the way he came

"I would be a fool to trust you." Mephisto called after him.


	6. Your Army, My Queen

_A/N: The disir in the marvel universe are different that from norse mythology. In mythology they seem to be female spirits. In the marvel universe (earth 616) they used to be Valyries under the command of Bor, the sire of Odin. They rebelled and started consuming the dead and having elicit sexual relations with Sigard (a powerful Asgardian). Bor cursed them to only consume the spirit forms of gods who have been exiled from their true forms. Thus the Disir will go hungry for all eternity._

 _Thanks for reading, following, favouriting, and reviewing!_

* * *

As Loki stood in front of the Disir, he felt their gaze feasting hungrily on his soul. Their penentrating gaze made him uncomfortable, but outwardsly he showed no fear. Having the rebellious, canabalistic Valkyries of Bor, Father to Odin feast on his soul didn't seem appealing. Loki's eyes wandered over the leader of the Disir, Brun, her appearance was like that of a body that had been found well preserved in a tomb for many years. It was obvious from her posture that she was ready to fight at all times, her stance well grounded and her hand drifting near her sword.

 _Even Thor, with his love for battle was not that ready for war._ Loki mused. He opened his mouth to say tell the four Disir in front of him that Mephisto had loaned them to him but was cuttoff as Brun stepped towards him.

"If we were not ordered to follow you, you wouldn't last three seconds." Her voice sounded dry making it sound more threatening that Loki thought it was intended to be. Knowing in his dead, cast out state it was possible for them to comsume him Loki did not need reminding how he would be at their mercy if he did not have the contract in place. He just gritted his teeth and endured the hungry gazes of the four starving Disir in front of him. "Call for us when we are needed." Brun's eyes followed Loki out as he left without saying a word.

Bad habbits die hard.

* * *

 _Loki stood on the asteroid alone, battered, weak. His clothes were torn, a massive graze in his side showing blood though the rip. He struggled to stay upright as he stared at the thing that had ripped through his skin, causing him to bleed. He tried to look tall and menacing, show no fear, show no pain, show no weakness. The huge hungry eyes that stared back at Loki threatened to rip all semblance of self control from him. As the beast stepped frowards, it's mouth drooling for another bite of the exiled prince, Loki stepped baackwards. The beast licked it's long fangs that peeked through its lips. The scales on its back glimmered in the low light._

 _Loki knew the only reason he was here is because he didn't say anything. He could leave if only he told Thanos everything. Though Loki didn't know how, he knew that if he told Thanos about the infinity gaunlet on Asgard, he would be saved from being eated by this beast._

 _In the end the beast had taken a large bite out of him and he had fainted from lack of blood before saying a word. By the time he awoke again, he was told that Thanos already had found someone to make the gaunlet for him and that the usefullness of Loki was drawing to an end before it had even begun._

 _And that was just the start of the pain._

* * *

Loki returned to Hel. He quickly hid the entrance to Hell, hoping in vain that Hela had not noticed it while he was gone.

Finding something was only easy when Hela wanted him to find it. As such finding Hela was easy. She was sitting in her throne again, the hooded figure kneeling in front of her. Loki could not hear what he was saying, but hela looked bored and wasn't even looking at him. When Helas eyes alighted on Loki, the hooded figure turned slightly, stood up and bowed slightly to Hela before retreating to the side.

Loki took that to mean it was safe to approach. He walked slowly to the position the hooded figure originally had and knelt down in front of the Goddess of Death. He waited a second , but when Hela didn't say anything first he looked up. "I have brought you that which you desire." he smiled up at her. Taking her intense staring at him to mean she wanted him to continue. "I have not only brought you an elite group of fighters but some nice irony." Loki paused dramatically, trying to read her face before calling out to the discraced warriors of old. "Disir."

In the place between Loki and Hela appeared 12 corpse like Valkyries.

Loki watched as Hela's eyes opened slightly wider. Loki guestured his arms to the side as he stood up. The disir arranged themselves to line the sides leading to the throne with practiced movements, calling to attention.

"Your gift from me to you. In return you will alow the asgardians to pass through to Valhalla." Loki smile remained faint on his face, but inside he was grinning. There was no way Hela could refuse undead warriors such as these serving her.

Hela turned her attention to the leader of the Disir. "You obey my word?"

Brun answered in her raspy dry voice. "We are sworn to serve you."

Hela twirled her hand in the air before asking. "So if I asked you to turn on Loki...?" A smile tugged on the corner of her mouth as Loki took a step backwards, unable to keep up his act.

"We will consume him." Brun unhesitatingly responded.

"Good, but that won't be necessary right now." Hela looked like she was holding back a laugh as Loki's pale face sighed in relief. "But it seems as if you have another motive, brother. I do not belive you are only doing this to free those trapped in limbo. Given your origins you it seems as if you would want to have the asgardians that once looked down upon you to suffer. I was expecting you want them to be cut off from Valhalla forever."

Loki sighed, putting his act back on. "You are right. I want something more from you. I want you to send the Disir to help the remaining Asgardians."

"And what reason would you have for helping them?" Hela was trying to call his bluff.

"Cause I was their King." Loki growled. "I ruled them under the guise of our father for two years. Then our oaf of a brother got in the way of that and you, sister, stopped me from retaking that back. I came to them as my acctual self, their saviour. Having my tricks undone they saw me as rightfull Prince of Asgard and heir to the throne." Loki took a breath. "I had sacrificed too much already to the good of Asgard to let them go unprotected now. And if you want to try to claim your birthright, I suggest you show the people that you are willing to fight for them, not against them."


	7. Where is the STONE?

_A/n:Can you guess who the hooded figure really is?_

 _To spice things up a little I switched POV to Hela for a short while, I will attempt to do so again in later chapters as well._

 _Thankyou all, for your continued support with your favourates and follows._

* * *

Hela sat back in the throne, contemplating the words her brother spoke to her. He seemed to have a point. Become Asgards' saviour. Given that there weren't much of them left it would be a waste to let them die, especially given that they were likely to die warrior deaths and head straight to Valhalla.

"Speak, Brother, of this threat that would wipe out the remainder of Asgard." Hela commanded Loki. She saw the relief in his eyes, perhaps he thought she was going to order him killed for speaking out. But when she looked to him, she was reminded of herself when she was barely a thousand years old, he really was her younger brother, following in her footsteps. Knowing Odin, he was probably reminded of her every time he looked upon the young frostgiant. What emotions that would bring to him, Hela could not fathom.

Hela was brought back to the present at the sound of Loki's voice. "Thanos holds 2 infinity stones, he plans to aquire the rest and wipe out half the universe."

With mention of the infinity stones her face became more serious. "The one on Asgard?" she prodded to which Loki replied with a brief nod.

"And the stone of power." He added. "He is powerfull enough to hold them without any assistance."

"There is no one powerfull enough to hold all at once." Hela scoffed.

"He has the infinity gaunlet as well, he will contain the full power of the stones if he is not stopped." Loki's voice was grim as he relayed the information.

"The one on Asgard was a fake!" She smirked. "He won't be able to hold them with that flimsy thing."

Loki's face drew darker. "That was destroyed with Asgard, Thanos has another. A real one. I am not sure where he got it from but it was not the vaults." This removed all semblance of a smile from Hela's face.

"Brother, you would council me?" Hela raised her eyebrow towards Loki and waited.

Loki licked his lips before replying. "I would have you send the Disir to lead the rest of Asgard to Earth. To set themselves up in a fortress so they might defend themselves from the upcomming war. I would have you prepare to lead the charge against Thanos on the home front."

Hela setteled back in her throne once again, contemplating what was said. Loki patiently waited for her response, standing tall, showing his confidence in his words.

It was a long while before Hela stopped mulling everything in her head. "Hiding would not stop Thanos from retriving all the infinity stones."

"This would not be hiding-" Loki tried to asure the goddess before she waved her hand, cutting him off.

"To properly deal with the situation and fight back, I would have to split my forces. But that would leave them too weak to deal with any major threats..." Hela pondered. Having been cut off previously, Loki patiently waited, knowing that if she wanted him to speak, she will tell him to speak.

After basking in another moment of contemplative silence, Hela's eyes flew to Loki's. "You want me to resurect you." She stated bluntly.

The revelation was too sudden, Loki didn't know how to react, he had been seen through. She was too much like him, he cursed inwardly. "I have said no such thing." He tried to deny. "Doing so would, however, incerease your prowess substansially." Loki tried reasoning.

"Do you take me for a fool?!" Hela demanded, standing up from the throne.

Meekly Loki bowed his head, bending ever so slightly as the instinct to flee overcame him. He said nothing as he waited.

Where was the pain?

* * *

 _Loki cowered under the gaze of the mad Titan as he bellowed down at him. He threatening stare drillig a hole through his soul. He made himself as small as possible as Thanos approached._

 _"Where is the reality stone?!" He demanded again._

 _"WHERE IS IT?"_

 _Loki felt the searing pain as something hot was brought to his back, it sizzeled as it touched his bare skin. He screamed, trying to cower furthur away. The hot poker was thrust back into the fire, reheating it to be used again._

 _"Where is the STONE?"_

 _He watched as the poker was brought out the fire, the end glowing red, flinching as he watched it brought closer to him._

 _"I don't know." Loki wimpered._

 _The hot metal was brought down on him again, causing his wails to crescendo._

 _Sobbing, he tried to explain to Thanos he was speaking true. "Bor, father to Odin destroyed it during the war with the Dark Elves."_

 _He watched as the poker was shoved back into the coals. For the briefest of moments he thought that this tourture was over, but after a couple of seconds the poker was back out of the fire, as hot as ever. Loki closed his eyes and waited for the pain to continue untill Thanos was satisfied he was telling the truth._

* * *

He was no longer under the thrall of Thanos, no longer his puppet, plaything or prisoner. He stood in front of his older sister, Hela Goddess of Death, Odindottir, firstborn, commander to the legions of Asgard and rightful heir to the throne. There were many times where she could have subjected him to painfull tourture, but she didn't. Loki was starting to belive that she had no plans to.

Hela walked forwards untill she was right in front of Loki, her hand reached out and grabbed his chin, tilting his head up to look at her. Loki marveled at the horns protruding from Hela's helmet and how she kept that on all the time, his own, with two horns instead of six, was too heavy for his head, so he only put it on for the bare minamal time at formal occasions. Hela seemed to be looking deep into his eyes though he could not see anything helpfull back in her eyes.

Slowly she released his face, if she had found what she was looking for, Loki could not tell.

Hela turned her back to Loki and the Disir, turning to the hooded figure. Without saying another word she left to a small door with the hooded figure following behind her.

Loki stared until she was out of sight before turning to Brun. "Are you really that desperate to turn on me?" he asked lightheartedly.

She turned her piercing gaze to him. "Yes, I'm starving."

Knowing that she spoke honestly with no signes of deciving him, Loki quickly took his leave of the Disir, they were now under the command of Hela now, he could not ask them for any favours. The only consolodation was that unless Hela commanded them, they would not consume him.


	8. Book of the Dead

_A/N: Sorry this is a short chapter._

* * *

As he was dead, Loki found that he didn't require sleep. Thus there was no way for him to hide from the thoughs of his brother, of the rest of the Asgardians and the waiting for Hela to decide his fate. But if he did sleep, Loki knew he would be plauged by nightmares, nightmares worse than reality, ones that would take him back to the past to Thanos. Thinking it over, as without something to do, Loki only had his thoughts, he was glad he could not sleep.

Without sleep, Loki was safe from Thanos.

It was several hours after Meeting with Hela, at least as far as Loki ould tell, when Loki found himself in fron of the hooded figure. He had never really paid any attention to who this person was, or who he used to be. As with everyone else in Hel, Loki assumed he was also dead. But after all this time, he had approached the god of mischief.

Loki brought himself from his thoughts to demand of the figure. "What do you want?" as if he had been interupted from something important. In reality, Loki was happy that had had something to distract himself from the worrying thoughts that penentrated his mind.

"I know where the book of the dead is." From under the hood that completely covered the face of Hela's servant a coarse gravely voice that sounded dryer than Bruns' and more rough. Loki could only imagin that the person underneath that cloak could only be more dead that the Disir themselves.

"How would the book of the dead be enticing to me?" Loki hid his lust, he new exactly what the book of dead was and how he could use it to his advantage. All he had to do would be to remove his name and he would come back to life.

"You wish to resurect. The book is the only way." It seemed as if he was struggling to talk.

"Ah," Loki paused as if in thought. "But I doubt that Hela would want me to come back alive. We seem to be getting along quite nicely and I wouldn't think she would want us to seperate too quickly. I wouldn't want to ruin our friendship by turning it into a long distance one, I don't think she knows how to use email." Loki blabered on.

A rasping cough sounded from underneath the hood. It took a little while for Loki to realise it was laughter.

"You think this is a trap."

Loki smiled and did not relpy.

"It is not a trap. Hela has plans for you that I don't think you want to follow through with. Before that happens I want to help you escape, you are needed to help lead the people." The figure was most persistant.

A dagger materilised in Loki's hand. He flipped it, weighing it as he appeared to be ignoring the hooded figure. "What are you to the Queen of Hel?"

"-What?"

"Are you her butler, right hand, lover?" He did not even spare a glance over to the hooded figure as he kept all his attention on his dagger but could see how the figure hesitated out the corner of his eye.

"That does not matter right now." the figure shifted uncombfortably.

Loki continued as if he hadn't heard them. "... Executioner?"

The silence that followed lasted a long while. After the deathening silence had lasted too long Loki was bored of the lack of reaction that elicited. With one swift movement he dematerilised the dagger, grabbed the hood of the figure and pulled the hood back over their head.


	9. Valhalla

_A/N: Thanks for all your support!  
If you have any suggestions on how I could improve the story or my writting to make this more enjoyable please review or send me a pm. I am going to update the chapter headings and summary to better fit where I am taking this story soon so feedback on those as well will be great.  
_

* * *

Hela paced about in her chambers, dark like the rest of Hel, dark like her mood for getting herself stuck in here again. Not that it wasn't already dark the last time she was stuck here. The only real difference before and after her atempt to take her rightful place on Asgard was the green. She had the entire place decorated in green drapes, banners, paint, flames. She use to have a lot of green jade figures comandeered from the dead, not that they were needing their prized possesions where she was sending them.

Having sent out her executioner, his only advise was to listen to the young trickster prince, and of course he would want to save Asgard. He had traded his place in Valhalla to reclaim the one throne she did have for the last milenium. That was one thing she liked of Loki, the god of lies always put himself first, even if it seemed like the opposite. It made him nicely predictable.

But here she was, having the fate of Asgard once again in her hands. But she was not their ruler. They would fall to ruin under the thumb of another.

Her pacing suddenly stopped.

If she sent out the Disir to help the refugees, set up a formidable fortress, a New Asgard while everyone else was busy dealing with Thanos, then she would have her chance to manipulate the growth of Asgard more to her liking before anyone noticed she was responsible. Maybe eventually figure out a way to connect New Asgard to Hel so she could rule rightfully over her people.

But first thing was first, she needed to uphold her side of the deal with Loki.

* * *

Loki stared in shock at the mangled face before him. The once cloaked figure in front of him was gaunt, malnorished, his skin grey and his eyes soulless.

"Scourge?" Loki croaked, his throat had dried up after seeing what had become of his lackey.

Scourge's gaze was downcast, Loki couldn't quite tell if it was because he was ashamed or if it was something else.

"I heard you died in the heat of battle fending off the undead horde from the ship, letting Heimdal secure the escape of our people. How are you not in Valhalla?" Loki raised his eyebrow in puzzlement.

Instead of responding, Scourge shrugged, refusing to look at Loki.

Before Loki got a chance to interogate his failed ex-minion, Hela appeared before them. She came out of nowhere, seemingly teleported beside them. Despite the supprise, Loki attempted to hide his shock under a neutral expression. Her steely gaze glanced over Loki before she commanded him. "Follow."

Without any other words, she turned and strode away with an air of confidence of one who was about to do something impressive. Loki couldn't help but stubble into a slight jog to catch up before sending his questions her way.

"Where are we going? Have you chosen to send the Disir to help?"

A slight smile creeped up the side of her face as she responded, looking straight forwards and not looking towards him. "I am going to show you the door you will never pass through."

Lokis' step faltered and he fell behind her, walking slower but fast enough not to be left behind.

They arrived at a door that looked much the same as everywhere else but this door seemed farmiliar to Loki, he knew what it contained.

Hela opened the door, standing in front of it in such a way that Loki could not see beyond her green cloak, and only once she had entered and moved out the way did he see a sight that took his breath away.

No longer was the dark room with the dead Asgardians in limbo. The golden gates of Valhalla stood tall enough to fit a giant ten times bigger than a frost giant. They were beautifully carved full of pictures of battles and legends and heros both that Loki reconised and ones which he did not. Creatures slain that did not exist, as well as those Loki new would incurr death should one bother them adorned the edges. In the middle was the farmiliar shape of yggdrasil, with Jormungandr circling around it that Loki reconised from Asgard. **  
**

From where he and Hela stood, on a balcony, seperated from the gate looking down as the Asgardians assembled, Loki could not help but check each of the faces once again for signs of his brother. Having given Loki some time to take in the sight, Hela waved her hand at the huge doors and they slowly opened. As soon as a crack was made the sound of laughter, loud voices raised in merryment was heard. The occasional clash of metal on metal could be heard over the celebrations. A wiry smile creaped into Loki's face. To fight and drink in Valhalla till Ragnarok didn't seem like something he would be interested in. In fact, he was now glad he had been refused entry to Valhalla by Hela. Though Thor would feel right at home amongst heros of old at an endless feast, it was never for him.

Unlike Loki, the Asgardians who were eager to join. They rushed forwards towards the slowly opening doors, impatient to join in the merryment. That was when Loki saw him. Heimdall. He stood to the side to alow the other Asgardians to go through before him. But what unnerved Loki was when Heimdall looked up, directly at him.

From the moment Loki entered that room, he knew the balcony was seperated from the gate to Valhalla through some magic. It was as if they were out of phase, different points inspace time, one observing the other. But somehow the old Gatekeeper looked directly at him. Loki took a hurried peek at Hela, gauging her reaction to Heimdall seeing through her magic, but she seemed unphased. Once his attention was back to Heimdall, Loki noticed he was smirking instead of the normal emotionless stern frown he normally carried around. Loki knew from this distance the all-seeing fellow could tell that his eyes had widened in suprise. Retaining the smile on his face, Heimdall went back to making sure the Asgardians entered Valhalla safely. Once he was the only one left, he made a small bow and stepped through the golden doors himself.

Loki stood staring at the closed doors to Valhalla intill Hela voice brought him back into the present.

"Our deal is complete." She turned to look at Loki her voice steady. "In return for your unwavering service to me I will send you with the Disir to set up a New Asgard on Earth, you shall make it as I command as a seperate sovereign from the mortals. Its defenses should not allow anyone near and should be impregnable. If I have deemed you to fail me in this then you shall know Hel not as you know it now." The threatening undertone to Helas words put Loki on edge, but he knew that Hela was giving him a chance he couldn't miss and would wish he could die all over again should he mess up.

Not knowing any words to convey his understanding and gratitude at once, Loki merely bowed deeply to Hela.


	10. Mirrors reflect Beauty

_A/N:Some of the references to the comics I use in my story before I remember where they come from. When I do remember it just makes me want to read all the storyliines I have/will reference in this story.  
_

 _I like how no one mentioned that the original title for my first chapter, the prolouge, was spelt prolog. Makes me wonder what else I have misspelt..._

 _Thanks for your favs, follows and reviews._

* * *

Loki knew Hela was faking it somehow. He was certian that she was not trapped here, not like she used to be. The only thing that was stopping Hela from escaping the last time was Odin. Now that he was dead...

 _No, it's not your fault, you didn't know that Odin was dying, that locking his mind away would hasten his departure._

Now that the AllFather was no longer using his power to suppress the god of death, she could leave easily. Or she should be able to come and go as she pleased but here she was telling Loki that she could not leave the realm of the dead.

 _Hela knew he was the god of lies and mischief and thus, he could see through them, right?_

Holding the book of the dead, Hela showed Loki his name. "I can't send you back as you are, you would just be a ghost." Hela was explaining. "So, instead I will have you inhabit the form of someone who is trusted with the Asgardians. The only Asgardian not on the escape pod however..."

Loki could see Scourge blush, he obviously knew who Hela was talking about. Loki was just supprised Scourge had enough blood left in him to blush.

Without attempting to hide his scowl at all the strings Hela was pulling, Loki growled. "Who?"

What was more annoying than Scourge blushing was Hela's evil grin. "Sif."

How Hela knew who Sif was, Loki didn't want to know. Lady Sif had not been seen on Asgard for years after Loki took over Odin's persona, and Loki had no idea where she went. When she had first disapeared he feared she had gone to tell Thor that Odin was an imposter, she was always very perceptive of how Loki acted. But after she did not come back, his worry subsided and he was relived as the only people who could possibly tell the difference would be her or Heimdall.

Realising the conotations, that he would have to pose as a strong female warrior, Loki couldn't help but grind his teeth. He had posed as female before, it wasn't too difficult, he already acted more like a female than a male in Asgardian terms, especially with his knowlage of magic. But acting like a fierce warrior... He tried passing off as his brother once before when they were kids, it didn't work as planned.

"Where is the Lady Sif, it has been years since she left Asgard?" Loki asked Hela, trying to hide his discomfort.

"Midgard, currently she resides near where I met you and your brother for the first time." Hela closed the Book she was holding and placed it back on the pedestal behind her. "If you were to share her body with her soul, you would likely have a hard time maintaining control. So I shall move her soul to take over another body for the time being until you have completed my orders."

Loki could only accept that this was his only option, for now. Pressing his lips tight together, he gave a stiff bow to the god of death.

Both of them knew there was no time to waste so Hela turned back to the book of the dead and started altering it. From where he stood, Loki could not see what she was doing but he knew that this would be the last time he had the comfort of his own body for a while. A tingling feeling spread through his entire body and started to grow untill it felt like it was trying to rip him away from the realm of Hel.

Then he wasn't there.

Instead he was standing in a field, the field where he watched his father die. The cliff lay two meters in front of him, the rock they sat on slightly to his left. The rock where his father acknowlaged him. He wasn't here to reminicse, though. After staring off into the brewing clouds, he realised that he was holding something in his hand, it wasn't that heavy or big. Looking down, he realised he was carrying a hand mirror. Bringing it closer to his face, he saw it was made of beautifully carved wood, the markings from Asgard around the handle, the back of the mirror had a wolf howling in the centre. Seeing the wolf caused him to shiver unintentionally, he reconised it to be fenris, Hela's conpanion. After admiring the mirror itself, he turned to look at his reflection, Lady Sif's face stared back at him. Her hair was tied back, midgardian style, but other than that she looked as Loki remembered. He looked down to see she was also wearing midgardian clothes. _To better fit in_ , he supposed.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed while he was in Hel so he wasn't sure if the escape ship would have made it back by then or if he still had time. given that Sakarian time was unhelpfull at best, he couldn't manually work it out either. There was only two options, either they were already here or they were not. The only thing he could do would be to try and find out.


	11. New Asgard

_A/N: Appologies for the Norwegian, google translate will be your friend, though you can probably ignore it as well._

* * *

Loki looked at herself in the mirror, Sif's brown eyes gazed back. _At least her hair is similar in shade as mine._ He mused, twirling the end around his finger. Sif smiled back at him as memories of Sif with golden hair were brought to mind. While the memory of him cutting her long blonde locks was not a painless memory, it was sweet innocence campared to some more recent memories that haunted Loki's waking thoughts. Loki decided to get Sif the most beautiful hair in all the nine realms, spun from pure gold. But lost a bet with a couple of dwarfs and had his lips sewn shut. Instead Sif's hair grew in dark, whick he thought was still very pretty. Loki was pretty sure it was that incident that caused Sif to always be wary of him.

As he continued to admire himself in the mirror, Sif's face vanished to be replaced by Hela's. "What's your progress?" she demanded.

"Not even a hello?" Loki pouted. Seeing that Hela was not even amused he continued. "They still aren't here, but we have the foundations built and are working on the outter walls now." Loki turned the mirror, so it faced the Disir who were piling rocks on top of each other. "Who knew that the undead were such dedicated workers!"

"I am not alowing you to walk the mortal realm to sit back and watch, Loki." Hela growled.

"I am not sitting back and watching... well maybe I am watching. The Asgardians will be here in a few hours, I estimate that to be the same time as the walls are completed." Sif''s eyes hazed over as Loki gazed out into the stars beyond midgard.

Hela's face disapeared. She had checked in with him five times since he had called the Disir to help build New Asgard from scratch.

Once loki got bored of checking in on the progress of the Asgardians and decided to help the Disir build the walls using his magic, the building increased in speed ten fold and they were done by the end of the hour.

Brun disapeared with the rest of the Disir to give Hela the report, leaving Loki alone in the empty New Asgard.

"Hallo! Noen der?!"

Hearing someone outside the walls, interupt Loki's thoughts as he wandered the circumference, Loki climbed up the staircase to see over the walls.

"Hva er det?!" Two local farmers were standing at the base of the wall, calling up to her.

Loki replied. "Hva vil du?"

The older farmer cupped his hands and shouted. "Dette er vårt land, du kan ikke bygge her."

After a moment of thought, Loki jumped off the wall to stand in front of the two farmers. _Superhero landing._ Loki thought, trying to hide the grimmace from his face as he landed on his knee. He stood up, flicking his hair tied up in a ponytail behind him. Facing the new city he summoned magic to raise it into the air by 2 meters and pushed it horazontally untill it floated in mid air off the edge of the cliff. Loki vaguely remembered that from this angle Odin had pointed at the space New Asgard now occupied and said " _Home._ "

Turning to face the two farmers, their faces pale with shock, Loki tilted his head and asked, "Har du noen klager?" They both quickly shook their heads, rooted to the spot with fear. Loki smiled at them, in what he hoped looked sweet and friendly and less menacing with Sif's face. "Jeg er din nye nabo. Dette er New Asgard." He turned and headed towards the floating city, only now realising that he had not made any doors. With no other way of getting back into the city, he teleported to Hel.


	12. Brother?

_A/N: Thanks for all your support, reviews, follows, favourates, and for continuing to read to this point._

* * *

"Well?" Hela demanded.

Loki stuck out her chest, bit her lip and made Sif's body look as seductive as possible before responding. "I had a little trouble with the locals and had to move New Asgard twenty meters off the edge of a cliff. You could help me by getting a more permament source of power to maintain it."

"Ergh, enough." Hela waved her hand at Loki, he found himself seperated from Sif's body, standing beside her. He was back to his weak male self. "You will find my libary through there." She waved her hand towards a door Loki knew didn't exist previously. "Leave my sight already."

Despite the dangers that were waiting for him, should his taunting go astray, Loki couldn't help himslelf, Hela reminded him too much of Thor. He missed teasing Thor, getting into mischief with the warriors three. The death gazed Sif threw his way every other day... Despite his attempts, he just could not repliate the way Sif did when she wanted to kill someone but due to political reasons was not able to at that moment.

Once in the libary, he found himself surrounded by endless rows of bookshelves, filled to the brim with tomes and scrolls. For Loki, this was Valhalla.

It didn't take him long to find the magic he was looking for. Though he would need to return to Asgard to cast the magic to keep it aloft. Once he had finished reshelving the books he did not need, Loki sensed a presence had appeared behind him. Turning, Loki realised the executioner had appeared, his cowel once again hiding his face. He held up his finger in silence and bekoned the tickster god to follow.

Curious, Loki followed, knowing that scourge was going behind Hela's back with the way he was acting, Loki could only cast his thoughts back to the book of the dead and the previous secret conversation he had with him before Hela appeared. Sure enough, Loki was brought to the chamber that held the book of the dead. Scourge guestured towards the book before turning to stand in the doorway. _Hopefully he is just keeping watch for if the Queen of the Dead were to appear._ Loki thought before turning to the pedestal and opening the book. _Given that he is not looking at what I am doing, I can do what ever I want in this book... as long as I can do it fast enough._ Loki knew that it was only a matter of time before Hela came to kick him out and tell him to continue her plans on Midgard.

Flipping through the pages, Loki saw all sorts of people, dead, dying, resurected. He kept on flipping untill he came across a name he had not seen or heard in over a thousand years. Balder Odinson. He was Lokis- _no... Thor's younger brother._ He was loved by all. Odin had Frigga make him invunerable to all things to keep him safe. It was the favouratism towards Balder when they were young that drew Thor and Loki together despite their differences. It was maybe one of the first pranks Loki remembers doing, finding out that Balder was vunerable to misletoe, making an arrow tipped in mistletoe, slipping it into Hoder's quiver as the blind god practiced. Really it was Balder's fault for getting in the way in the first place.

Now Loki saw that Balder had spent the last thousand years in Hel. With just a couple of words written into the book, Loki could bring him back to life. He was heir to the throne, Balder would take the throne before Loki did. But Balder might be easier for Hela to control... or harder knowing how stubborn and cool headed he was as a kid. After deliberating for a second longer, Loki immidiatly flipped to his own page.

A fresh start. One which he could be with Thor forever without them trying to kill each other on a regular basis. Raising the pen, Loki wrote a few words under his name.

After glancing behind him to make sure Scourge was still at the doorway, Loki added another sentence to the book.

 _Ragnarok is over._

"You have made me proud this day, my son." A farmiliar voice said behind Loki, causing Loki to drop the pen and sin around in shock.

"Allfather?" Loki gasped as the person he had been assuming was scourge removed his hood, revealing himself to be Odin Borson.

"You have grown in my absence. I am glad. I tried to hid so much from my sons of the outside world but I fear all that I managed was to delay the inevitable." Odin's eyes' glistened with tears that dared not fall.

Loki tried to say something, his mouth opened and closed but no sound came out.

"Go, my son. Find the rest of our people and lead them to prosperity. You will do a far better job than I ever did if you work with your brothers." As the first tear started to fall, down his cheek, Odin reached out his hand towards Loki. Without thinking, Loki grasped it.

Everything went white. Odin, the Book of the Dead, the libary, Hel, Loki all disappeared.

Loki found himself standing in front of a florist shop, back in Norway. Previously when he had scouted the area, something had seemed off with this place, but now he was certian he knew what it was. Loki walked through the door, setting off the bell attached to the doorframe. Behind the counter was the burliest florist he had ever seen. Though to Loki, something seemed farmiliar about this florist. He walked up to him, and stared into his eyes. Though it looked like the florist wanted to step backwards, he didn't. Loki stared into Balders' eyes for a second longer then grabbed the burly man's forhead and probed with magic.

Suddenly there were two men in front of Loki. They looked quite differnt from each other. The florist was slightly muscular but no where near as much as he was a second ago and absolutely no where near the level Balder was at. Balder looked around confused untill he spotted Loki.

Loki smiled shyly at him and waved. "Hello brother."


	13. I am a King!

_A/N: It's been over a month since it last rained, maybe more. Given that it is currently raining, heavy, and lasting longer than a minute I couldn't sleep and instead decided to write. So here is the next chapter, hope you enjoy._

* * *

After Loki had inhabited Sif's body for a couple of minutes he had decided to spice it up and make it look more like himself. Using Sif to command the Asgardians would not make any sense, especially since she had been away from Asgard for a few years. However Loki himself had been ruling Asgard for the same amount of time, even though he was pretending to be Odin, so the people were used to him and would more readily follow his guidance, at least that was his reasoning. While Loki could use a full glamor to make him look like his old male self, looking female made the reincarnated thing a little more belivable. With that in mind he had altered the bare minimum to make it obvious that it was him, Loki and enough to hide that this body looks remarkably like Sif.

Balder looked at Loki with a blank gaze before reaching out towards her. "Loki..?" he whispered.

Loki raised her eyebrows at him. "Yes, it's me, brother. It's been a while. It's good to have you back."

"You... I do not remember you being female." Balder's confused voice making Loki smirk.

"Nor I but here we are. Nords seem to have favoured you more." Her gaze drifted up his length.

Balder laughed. "Or they got fed up with your tricks and decided to play one on you."

Despite herself, Loki could not help laughing with him. He reminded her of Thor. Loki didn't know how long it had been but she still missed him. "Ther is much you have missed, much I need to catch you up on. But now it not the time or place." Loki took a quick glance at the florist. He seemed to be at a bit of a loss, Loki didn't think he spoke much English. Guiding Balder outside and towards New Asgard, she explained an overview of how Asgard had been blown up, Ragnarok had passed and of the survivors, only half remained that would arrive to New Asgard soon. Loki also explained that the souls of the Asgardians that had been released from Valhalla during Ragnarok were trapped in mortal beings. And that Loki was going to free them before the rest of Asgard shows up.

Hearing the noble cause that Loki was striving towards, Balder rushed to offer his help on her quest. So after having Balder help create a door and set up the spell formation to keep Asgard from plunging into the oceam below, they set off together to find the rest of the Asgardians.

It wasn't hard for them to notice. After having found the warriors three and several others, sending them back towards New Asgard, they came across on old Hydra instalment. It was well hidden, even with Loki's magic, they almost missed it. But there was a large concentration of Asgardian presence for Loki to sniff out that enventually they found the enterance, a hatch hidden under a rock on a mountainside.

Inside it was dark, and damp. The sound of dripping water made an ominous tapping noise that put Loki on edge. She started moving slower, muffling her footsteps, weary of what could be waiting around the corner.

* * *

 _"The Exiled Prince is nothing but a wining child. You play your games but have no place." The words did not rhyme but yet the singing did not stop, the words taunting him._

 _"I am a King!" Loki shouted back. He stumbled to his feet, and gripped the bars of the cell they were keeping him in. "I am the rightful King of Jotenheim, of Asgard." He pressed his face to the bars trying to get a look for the one who kept taunting him._

 _"Second born, always behind, never equal." The voice continued uninterupted. "Always looked down upon, always frowned upon. They never wanted you, they were only using you. You were only a stolen relic that outgrew it's usefulness."_

 _"Nooo!" Loki cluched his head. "They made me king! They put the spear in my hand."_

 _"As soon as Thor was back, you stopped being King. They never wanted you. They only ever wanted Thor."_

 _"Thor doesn't know how to rule, he isn't good enough to be King." Loki stared sobbing as he slid down the bars into a sitting position._

 _"He cast you out to take your place." The singing continued._

 _"Always living in his shadow." It was at this point that Loki realised there was no one else, the one singing was himself._

* * *

"Loki!"

As if waking up from a dream, Loki's eyes slowly drew into focus on Balder's face. He looked worried, Loki had never seen him look worried before. Loki pushed her brother of of her, drawing her attention to where they were.

A prison cell.

There were a large number of people holed up in here, most of them, Loki could tell were Asgardians. Supprisingly a couple of them near the back seemed to be Jotun.

"Balder lets get them all out of here first, before whoever locked them up in here comes back." Having cleared her head, Loki started to think straight again. They set to work, Loki opening the cages and Balder seperating the Asgardian from the Midgardian.

Eventually Loki came to the Jotuns. After a moment hesitation where memories of trying to destroy Jotunheim filled her mind, she unlocked their cage and ushered them out. None of them looked to be in good shape. It was obious from the limping but as they passes Loki, avoiding eye contact, Loki could see scars covering all their exposed skin.

"Balder, I need you to quickly get everyone out of here. It doesn't matter if you finish seperating them all now or later, just take them back to New Asgard quickly." Loki called to Balder across the room. He seemed to hear the minor panic in her voice as he quickly nodded before ushering everyone out without hesitaion.


	14. I never wanted to be King

_A/N: I am really sorry for my absence. IRL caught up with me. I will try to post new chapters more consistently but due to IRL I can't promise much over the next year. Hopefully I will finish this before IW part 2._

 _Given that I wrote only half wrote this chapter over a month ago and can't rember where I was going with this it's really short, sorry about that._

* * *

Once Balder had left with all the Midgardians, Asgardians, untransformed hybrids and Jotun, Loki sat down on the floor and started drawing a rune circle around herself. Balder came back, having pointed them in the direction of New Asgard just as she finished drawing it.

"What are you doing?" He asked on his return.

"Setting a trap." Loki smiled. "When Hydra returns they shal endure the same pain they had caused the previous occupants here." She stood up and took Balder's arm. "Come, brother. We need to make sure everyone is comfortable in their new home." She lead him out of the dank hole in the ground and back to New Asgard.

During the hours that they had been going around finding more Asgardians, progress on the inner walls had begun. At this point half of Asgard was made from tempory shelters hastily built, the other half of semi constructed walls. Loki was happy with the progress made so far. He hadn't even needed to call upon the Disir to help again.

The Jotun that had been save from the cluches of Hydra were being welcomed with open arms by the once dead Asgardians. It was a friendliness Loki did not know the Asgardians had in them. It seems that once all had been reduced to their bones, then they would be able to see companionship between them for a fair number of them had suffered at the hands of Hydra together.

Loki walked towards them, his arms outstreched in welcome. "Brothers, Sisters, this will be your new home and tonight we shall feast for tommorow we prepare for war." as the Asgardians and Jotun cheered she turned to Balder who stood behind her. Grasping his arm and pulling him forwards, she lent in and whispered into his ear. "These are your people now, and you shall rule over them."

"But Loki," he protested, "You have more right than I do."

"Nonsense Brother." She smiled as she continued to guide him. "You are true born. I never wanted the throne, and you have more leader-like qualities than I ever will." As he opened his mouth to protest some more, she placed her finger on his lips, shushing him. "Now, go speak to your people, get to know them. I shall go make preparations for tonight, in celebration of the end of Ragnarok. And to welcome those who survived when they land later on."

Balder turned at the last sentence Loki spoke, "Those who...?" but Loki had already disapeared from sight. Seeing that there was nothing else to do, Balder aproached the crowd, to mingle with the new people in new Asgard.


	15. The sun won't shine

_A/N: It was really sad to hear about the death of Stan Lee. In the spirit of those that are dead who shouldn't be, here is another chapter. I will try to write a few more chapters in the comming days in memory of Stan Lee._

 _Thankyou to those who have followed/favourated and especially those who left reviews during my extended absence_

* * *

Hela turned her gaze from the mirror on the wall. The Disir were helping protect and navigate the remainder of the Asgardians to Midgard where Loki had set up a New Asgard. Though they were still a few hours away from their destination and given that the Disir Loki gave her were not on Asgard, the only way she could find out about Loki's progress, she would have to call Loki.

* * *

"Sister..."

Loki paused, managed to hold her tounge. She lowered the mirror, hiding it in her dress before turning from the view out over the wall to see Balder's worried look. "Brother."

"Are you alright, sister?"

Loki gave a slight nod, reached out to firmly grasp Balder's shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting grasp. "I'm good, brother."

The look in Balder's eye told Loki that he did not belive her. He was looking at her as if she had said Thor's name. Balder clasped Loki's arm back. "You have been away from the party for a while now, you should return with me."

A faint smile appeared on her lips at his words, but did not reach her eyes, and Balder noticed. Loki wasn't sure what was worse, that Balder was staring at him with pity in his eyes or that he wasn't hiding the pity in his eyes.

"Yes, we should return." Loki slowly let go of Balder's arm as she walked past him away from the wall and towards the stairs that lead down towards the party that was still going on. From on top of the wall they could see the entirety of New Asgard. Amongst the Asgardians and the Jotun were a fair amount of Local Nowegians enjoying themselves. Some local musicians were playing Midgardian classics, which to Asgardian ears sounded very exotic and Loki was glad that his people were able to enjoy themselves dancing to it.

Seeing the festivities made Loki pause in her steps. It had been a long time since she had seen asgardians smile. The last time she could remember was when she was pretending to be her father, right before Thor entered and exposed the lie. Thinking deeply about it, it was... less than three weeks ago!

As Loki stopped so suddenly, Balder walked into her back. "Ah, sorry." He apoligised. "What is wrong, dear sister?" Loki had turned her face towards him, revealing her eye which glistened with tears.

"Nothing brother." She reached up to feel her wet eyes. "I was just thinking about how it's nice to see the Jotun getting along so well with our people." Turning her back to Balder again, she quickly dried her eyes. "I just never thought our two races could ever reconcile their differences. Well we should not be the only ones who neglect to establish any." Recovering, she along with Balder desended into the joyous festivities.

Even though Loki was overjoyed by the hope she had of the future with her being of Jotun inheritage... she couldn't help but wonder about her other brother and if he was still alive. Would they be able to go on adventures and get into trouble ever again? With both their parents gone, it was up to them to lead the rest of their people to safety... but that was not going so well so far...

Hiding these thoughts below the surface to allow a smile to shine upon her face as the setting sun slowly cast her in shadow.


	16. Cameo

"Excelsior!"

Loki noticed an old man with grey hair in the crowd by the ale keg. He had clearly drank too much, he was telling a group of Jotun and Asgardians about many wild tales about superheros from Earth, while gripping onto a female Asgardian's dress for support. When the old man eventually fell over, it looked like he would tear off her dress with it.

She smiled slightly at the sight before turning away and aproaching a huge Joutn beside Balder.

"Welcome to New Asgard." Loki made a slight bow before the towering giant. "I am Loki, princess of Asgard and this is my brother, King of Asgard." She introduced them both.

"Thank you for hosting my people in your city despite the differences we have had in the past. I am Aegir."

Balder stepped forwards. " Can I assume that you would be able to speak on behalf your people?"

Solemly, Aegir nodded. "My people will listen to me, yes."

"Good," Loki butted in. "As I am going to need you to make sure your people are prepared to fight side by side with mine."

Balder nodded in agreement. "There is a threat on the horizon and we need to make preparations to protect ourselves and, if we are able, deal with it ourselves. After these fesivities I will be counting on you to rally your people to help build up the walls so that they are able to be defended.

"If the need is great for our protection, why would you host this celebration in the midst of great danger?" Aegir questioned them.

There was a moment of silence before Loki almost whispered. "Both your people and ours have gone though too much recently. There may not be another time to remember that we are still alive for soon we may all be dead."

With the seriousness in Loki's voice neither Balder of Aegir dared refuke her words. They exchanged a glance, noting that neither of them dared ask Lokik what the great threat on the horizon was.

"Very well then," Aegir bekoned for one of his clansmen to bring over a couple of mugs of Ale. He handed the drinks to Loki and Balder. " A toast." All three of them raised their mugs. "To the calm before the storm!"

"To a long lasting relationship between our two people!" Balder added.

"To Stan Lee!" Loki raised her mug slightly higher before the three of them brought them to their mouths. Loki downed hers in one gulp.

Taking an empty glass as a chance to sneak away, she pointed to the mug. "I am going to get a refill, I will let the two of you get to know each other better."

She headed over to where the old man she had seen earlier was still yammering away. After refilling the mug by the Keg located beside him, she stood to the side intending to listen to every word he said for as long as she could.


	17. Bring the Thunder

_A/N: Apologes this has been too long. I really am cutting this short to the deadline I set myself. My first exam is on the same day as the US release day of endgame, which is regretably (predicatably) two days after it comes out in my country. So I am going to be waiting two days more than I have to so I can focus on my first exam. Really shouldn't be doing this 4 days before, but... I need to finish this before it comes out._

 _A special thanks to_ _Natalie Rushman_ who reviewed every single one of my chapters when I was unable to update, I really feel like I let you down personally and I am really sorry about that. Hopefully my rush to finish doesn't ruin the rest of the story for you.

* * *

Loki awoke to the sound of thunder.

With a start, she found herself on the floor, hugging the keg barrel, vague memories of the past few hours swirling around in her head about the party that had happened. She pushed herself up, looking around at the result of the chaos. Asgardians lay strewn about passed out on the floor everywhere, empty kegs like the one she had been holding were scattered about. There didn't seem to be a single drop of Ale left.

She seemed to be the only one awake, though she could see no sign of Balder or the self appointed leader of the frost giants among the sleeping.

As lightning flashed bright in the sky, Loki looked up, realising it was still dark, they had partied till the sun went down but hadn't survived till the sun rose once again. _It will rise again._ She carefully made her way to the barricaded walls, lightly stepping over each comatose body in the way.

Climbing up the rocky wall to peer over the edge, she could see the storm clouds thickening on the horzon, soon it will be completely overcast.

Turning back from the horizon, Loki saw too figures on the battlements at the other side of the city. Peering closer, she could tell they were the two missing party goers, Aegir and Balder. They looked like they were in deep discusion. Loki started to head in their direction when another deafening crack of thunder caused her to jump. She spun almost falling off the wall into the ocean below.

There ws no doubt in her mind, that was Thor.

But he was too late.

Before Loki could figure out how far away he was, there was another roar from the heavens, this time it wasn't thunder. Through the clouds appeared a relativly smal spaceship. Her eyes lit up and thoughts of her brother vanished from her mind as she reconised this as the ship they had evacuated half the remaining Asgardians to.

But it was on fire.

And about to land into the ocean.

Loki shouted across to where the two leaders conversed. "Brother, our people have arrived!".

Balder responed by running around the battlements to watch as the flaming escape vessel nosedived into the ocean, creating waves that brushed against the botton of New Asgard. He turned to Aegir as Loki preped to jump into the rocky waves, "Wake our people, tell them to prepare for more arrivals." before following Loki with an elegant swan dive.

Together Loki and Balder climber to the hatch on top of the ship, opening it, they climbed inside. The ship was overpopulated with asgardians and a few fighters from Sakar, but the two Royal Asgardians managed to squeeze their way on board. Loki's gase fell onto the front controls, where the loaned band of Disir, were manning the controls beside a very sober looking Valkrie. Wriggling his way over, Loki managed to tap Valkrie on the shoulder, making her turn. Her eyes loked at her, blankly. "What? Can't you see I'm busy here?"

Loki smiled, remembering that he looked quite different that when they last met. "Tell Brun I am going to teleport people out of here, and that she's late." Loki peppered her words with anoyance, but really, she was just relieved that they managed to arrive safely.

Before Valkrie could reconise who she was, Loki took out some chalk from her dress and started crawling between people's legs, drawing the cosreponsing teleportation rune to the one in New Asgard.

When Loki was almost finished drawing the last pentagram, she heard Balder shout, "Brace yourselves, we are about to get knocked over!" Loki couldn't see where he was, all she could see was the legs of the Asgardians in front of him. But seconds later, she was knocked onto the floor as the ship was rocked to the side by a massive wave. _Any bigger,_ she mused, _and we will capsize._ Quickly regaining her balance, she scampered forwards on her hands and knees to finish the chalk line.

Once the runes were drawn, they needed to be activated by saying the spell. Loki opened her mouth. Water splashed her in the face, silencing her. It was only then that she realised, she was sitting in an ever increasing puddle of water. The ship had sprung a leak. Initially she figured she must not have notices as she had already been swimming in the sea water outside, so was already wet before she got inside. Quickly, before the situation could get anyworse, she said the words to activate the runes.

Nothing happened.

Worried, Loki crawled around her circle or runes, noticing that several of them had been partially washed away. She redrew any with had been scuffed off before casting the ritual again simultateously, over and over again.

Suddenly everyone within the circle disapeared.

Loki quickly hopped up onto her feet andwent to stand in the middle of the circle, to catch a glimpse of Balder, "Brother, I have a way out." she shouted at him as he was helping people out the hatch.

Balder looked towards Loki's rune circle, "Two ways are better than one, get as many out as you can, the ship won't last mich longer." he redoubled his own efforts to get as many out the way they came in as he could, Loki could do nothing but direct more Asgardians to stand in the circle, and cast then away, all the while checking the chalk marks stay visible.

Never had there been a time were Loki had been kicked, on purpose or accidentially as he was while trying to navigate the crowds on his knees.

Soon the only people left in the ship were the Disir, Valkrie, Loki and Balder.

Loki turned to the Disir, "Brun, make sure the Asgardians in the water make it to land safely." The Disir disapeared out the hatch before Loki truned to the two remaining. "Balder, Valkrie, stand inside the circle."

This time Loki stepped in herself as well before casting the spell. Their surroundings suddenly changed from the water logged spaceship to the stone walls of New Asgard. Around them, the newly arrived Asgardians and Sakarians mingled with the hungover Asgardians, Jotuns and Norwegians. Seeing that the ones Loki rescued were safe, Balder ran to the walls to find the rest.

Loki turned to follow him


	18. Beginings Follow Ends

_A/N: This chapter is set during the events at the end of Infinity War part one_

* * *

Loki took half a step after her brother before stopping in her tracks. She looked down at her hand as it faded into nothingness. "Brother..." she whispered before fading away. To which brother she was calling out to, not even she fully knew.

Balder turned to see Loki vanish. More vanishing around him as he watched on in horror, the Disir with the rest, forgotten. The Asgardians had already been devestated by Ragnarok, now this. The enemy that caused the haunted look Loki possesed in her eyes when she thought he wasn't looking. A mixture of grief and rage boilded inside Balder, paralising him to the spot. He would not let any more of his people suffer.

* * *

Hela looked away from the mirror. As much devestation she had caused in Asgard, the ones that turned to dust by this power did not enter her domain, and thus were forever lost. She placed the mirror down beside her throne and looked up to see Loki stand before her in his original dead, male form.

He stood stock still, as if in shock at what had just happened. His lips slightly parted, but no sound came out. His eyes, glased off into the middle distance, but wide as if he had seen a ghost.

Hela knew her expression matched his quite accuratly. But she snapped out of it faster than he did.

"You failed." she snapped.

Loki's lips moved but didn't form any sounds. His eyes didn't meet her, nor did they seem to even notice she was there. After waiting for a reaction for a few seconds, Hela stood up from her throne and strode towards the blank Loki. One step away from him, she leaned in close to his face, her cold, dead breath brushing against his face. "Kneel before your Queen."

As if the breath of death brought him back to his senses, Loki fell to his knees, his eyes glistened with tears. But he remained silent.

Hela, turned back towards her throne ad stood in front of it, least Loki be looking at her crotch. "In regards to recent events, it seems that my people are in need of me even more. I will take back my throne through the manipulation of King Balder. But your brother Thor has arrived back on midgard. He could interfere with Balder more than I would like." Hela turned her gaze elsewhere in the room so Loki could not see the sadness reflected in her eyes.

"There is one other way I can return you to the land of the living, now that the vessel you were inhabiting has vanished." Hela mused.

After a couple of seconds, Loki seemed to comprehend what Hela had just said, his head lifter slightly and his tear froze on his face.

"However," Hela continued. "This way posed more risk for both of us in the long term." Hela turned back to Loki. "I can resurect you by giving you back to the cycle of rebirth." Confusion crossed Loki's face as his eyes looked up to Hela expectantly. "Normally, Ragnarok would kill off all Asgardians and they would all enter the cycle of rebirth, to be reborn and recreate Asgard in a new cycle to do the same once again. However, with how Ragnarok happened this time, not many Asgardians were tossed back into the cycle. You were not, which is why you are still here."

Hela moved to sit back down on her throne, "However with this method. Your ability to retain memories is... most likely non-existant. You won't remember the promise you made to me or anything you have done in this life."

"Will it allow me to see Thor again?" Loki asked.

After a second pause Hela responded simply, "Yes."

Without a moment hesition, Loki looked Hela directly in the eyes. She could see his hope highlighted with his tears. "Then I will take it."

Standing back up from her throne, Hela guestured towards the shadows in the corner of the throne room. "Very well."

As The cloked figure approached, holding a worn tome out to the Godess of Death, Loki declared, as if to no one in particular. "The contracts I have made in this life shall remain in this life and shall not pass onto my next."

Turning the pages of the tome, Hela smiled secretly.

After reading the page, she turned to Loki and grasped his head in her hands, tearing his soul from his body. The last thing he saw before everythign went black was his own body fall to dust at Hela's feet as he watched from an ever increasing distance.

Hela turned back to the hooded figure, snapped the tome shut and tore it out his hands.

"I can see why you can't stand him." She snarked at the hooded figure.

The hooded figure, pulled the hood back off his head. Odin looked up at Hela. "You must be proud of him he has the same ability to wiggle his way out of places as you do."

"I am sure you taught him that yourself."

Odin chuckled, "I was not a good father to him, he reminded me too much of his mother. His acctual father might have given him more care than I."

"Supprised you even remember who his mother was, surely the only thing that mattered was his father being your archnemisis?" Hela Scoffed.

"At least, if I had left him with his father, he wouldn't have found his mother's wardrobe and started dressing up like her." Odin shock his head sadly, "In which of the nine realms does a fachion sense of black and green work?" Slowly, he walked to the wall of the room, placing his hand out as if to grasp a door handle that didn't exst.

Before he could turn his hand, Hela turned red. "Wait! Who's fashion sense were you talking about?!"

Odin laughed, he turned the handle and opened a rift. Without turning, he responded, "Yours. Maybe this time, you can raise him yourself." Before Hela could get another word in, he disapeared into the rift, shutting it behind him.

Hela gaped at the wall for a second before picking up the mirror beside her throne. "Executioner, put the book of the living back in the libary!" she commanded, then turning her attention to the mirror, gazed within.

* * *

Loki zipped up his green hoodie and pulled the black hood over his hair before heading out onto the panicked streets of Paris. He nimbly slunk his way down alleyways and between the legs of adults, trying to find his way out the slums. With no adults to restrict his movement, now was the perfect time to move up in the world.

* * *

 _A/N: Apologies if this seemed slightly rushed or rough on the edges. This will be the last pre Endgame chapter. I plan on doing at least one more, but will wait untill after I have seen the next part on which direction I will take it in._

 _After seeing how the intermission between this chapter and the last one played out, I understand why Infinity War is split up as it is. But it's too late now to go back and add the first part of this to the end of the last chapter._

 _Thank you for reading this far into this story, I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have, and my plot didn't confuse you._


End file.
